A solid greatest hits package that’s a better fit for newcomers than it is for fans.

, the latest release in the offbeat Nintendo series that takes the expression ‘a quick game is a good game’ to its most literal extreme, is a greatest hits slab with substantial appeal for newcomers. It’s just a shame that its assortment of rehashed ‘microgames’ and disappointingly mixed bag of unlockables combine for an overall package that feels all too familiar for existing fans.

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As with previous entries in the series, the core gameplay of WarioWare Gold is a breakneck succession of gameplay microgames that put your reaction times to the test. This relentless think-quick shtick finds mirth in otherwise mundane tasks and distills classic Nintendo games down to a few frames of fun, with 3-5 second microgames that are separated into three main types: mash, which is button-based; twist, which uses the 3DS’ built-in gyro-sensor; and touch, which requires tapping and swiping of the stylus. (There are also a few microphone-based games, but they all ultimately amount to just blowing air as hard as you can.)

In some modes, WarioWare Gold hops back and forth between the different control methods from one microgame to the next, which could have been a clumsy juggling act given the increasingly frantic pace at which the game moves. Fortunately distinct audio and video cues make it clear which input style is about to come next, and I found WarioWare Gold to be at its dynamic best when it was mixing things up.

Most of the 300 microgrames included are brought over from previous games, but WarioWare Gold at least presents them in a way that feels fresh. For the first time in the series, and in somewhat of a rarity for first-party Nintendo games in general, WarioWare Gold features full voice-acting for its colourful cast of characters. This adds a welcome splash of personality to its two-hour story mode, successfully working in tandem with the wonderfully vibrant art style. I particularly enjoyed the alien Orbulon’s multiple trips to the fast food drive through window, and 18-Volt’s Parappa the Rapper-esque rap battle, but the entire cast does a great job with each and every lighthearted exchange.

More snot-sniffing and nose-picking than a kindergarten classroom in cold season.

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Yet if you’ve kept up with the series even in a sporadic sense, then the bulk of WarioWare Gold won’t really serve up too many surprises. It’s a blur of freshly popped toast catches, well-timed skateboard flips, and more snot-sniffing and nose-picking than a kindergarten classroom in cold season. As a WarioWare fan since the 2003 GBA original, I felt fatigue set in relatively early on after I’d completed the story mode, as I repeatedly slogged my way through all of these well worn gameplay vignettes purely to earn enough coins to pump into the in-game capsule machine.

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This grinding for gold rarely felt adequately rewarded, because what came out of the capsule machine was disappointing more often than not. There are a handful of expanded minigames to discover, along with assorted curios like cutscene clips that can be redubbed with your own voice using the 3DS’ microphone, or an art mode in which Wario paints hilariously awful recreations of your amiibo collection. But the bulk of the 200 or so unlockables is by-the-numbers filler like character cards and music tracks, along with far too many codes for an in-game phone that trigger plodding, text-based messages. Why the excellent voice-acting from the story mode didn't extend to this, I'm not exactly sure.

I did however find some life in the challenge modes which add interesting wrinkles to the typical WarioWare structure, although admittedly some fare better than others. WarioWatch adds a countdown timer that is topped up with precious seconds as you clear each challenge, giving you an incentive to increase your reaction times in order to stay ahead of the clock. Meanwhile Thrillride ratchets up the tension considerably by giving you just one life and making every game a more urgent sense of sudden death. On the flipside, I found the Wario Interrupts mode to be about as fun as trying to play a game with an attention-starved younger sibling tugging at my arm, and SplitScreen merely alternates each consecutive game between the system’s two screens, which doesn’t really add much to the challenge or enjoyment.

Verdict

Like the gaming equivalent of binge-watching a playlist of the funniest Vine videos, WarioWare Gold provides some enjoyable short attention span shenanigans, particularly for newcomers. But in the absence any substantial new additions and a paucity of worthwhile extras, WarioWare Gold is more like a runner-up silver for long term fans of the series.

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